973.7L63   Bissett,  Clark  Prescott 

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1916      Abraham  Lincoln 

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ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

AN  ADDRESS  BY 

CLARK    PRESCOTT    BISSETT 

PROFESSOR  OF  LAW 
UNIVERSITY  OF   WASHINGTON 
SEATTLE,  WASHINGTON 


LOS   ANGELES,    CALIFORNIA 

CANNELL  SMITH   CHAFFIN  COMPANY 

MDCCCCXVI 


COPYRIGHT   1916 
BV 

CANNELL  SMITH  CHAFFIN   COMPANY 


To  Mr.  J.  D.  Farrell,  these  simple  words 
are  dedicated  as  a  token  of  my  respect  and 
affection ;  as  a  slight  evidence  of  my  ever 
increasing  gratitude  for  his  friendship  and 
generosity  towards  me  when  the  sky  was 
clouded  and  the  hope  of  life  seemed  very  small. 
Clark  Prescott  Bissett 


LINCOLN 

Stripped  to  the  soul  of  every  vain  conceit, 
I  stand  before  the  record  of  his  deeds, 

O  mighty  man,  so  humble  and  so  sweet, 

O  heart,  so  quick  to  throb  for  human  needs. 

Charles  Eugene  Banks. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


The  blood  of  a  man  is  the  blood  of  his 
ancestors  for  generations,  perhaps  for  aeons. 
How  far  back  into  the  dim  past  must  we 
grope  to  find  the  seed  blood  of  such  a  man  as 
Abraham  Lincoln? 

Through  what  numberless  selections, 
receiving  and  denying,  was  that  process  car- 
ried on  ?  How  many  violations  of  nature's  law 
by  rebellious  atoms,  brought  destruction  to  the 
unfit,  and  cleared  the  way  for  the  harmonizing 
of  the  fit  through  these  myriads  upon  myriads 
of  life  channels,  until  at  last  the  emancipator 
was  born?  These  are  the  thoughts  which  grip 
and  hold  when  the  character  and  works  of 
America's  greatest  soul  genius  is  considered. 
There  is  no  answer.  Deity,  Who  knows  all 
laws  and  the  working  of  them,  is  alone  cogni- 
zant of  such  things.  Yet  a  little  knowledge  of 
the  course  of  the  stars  in  their  orbits  compels 
the  recognition  of  law  in  all  creation,  all  utter- 
ance.   Chance  is  pushed  aside  immediately  the 

[  1  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

realm  of  reason  is  entered.  Nothing  is  by 
chance.  If  a  grain  of  sand  had  its  conception, 
before  the  mists  of  which  the  earth  is  made 
had  cooled,  is  a  Lincoln  to  come  into  being  by 
a  cast  of  mortal  dice?  Was  this  harmonious 
representative  of  all  the  best  in  physical, 
mental,  moral  and  soul  endowment  of  less 
moment  to  the  Universal  Creator  than  a  spar- 
row, which  does  not  fall  to  the  ground  without 
His  notice?  Is  the  genius  of  a  Wagner,  who 
brought  together  such  sublime  harmonies, 
accidental?  And  did  the  man  who  struck  the 
cords  of  universal  rights,  universal  justice,  and 
universal  democracy,  have  less  care  from  the 
Father  of  all  life,  than  His  simpler  creations? 
Abraham  Lincoln  is  the  name  of  a  combina- 
tion of  Nature's  forces  in  such  harmonious 
union,  that  the  more  they  were  beaten  upon, 
the  more  they  proved  their  divine  metal,  the 
brighter  the  effulgence  they  emitted.  Pore 
over  all  the  records  of  his  life,  which  is  one  of 
the  simplest  and  most  open  that  this  earth  has 
ever  seen,  and  there  is  no  point  of  it  that  shows 
the  least  flaw  when  measured  by  the  Rule  of 
Truth. 

[  2  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

An  intellectual  giant  may  be  developed  by 
culture  from  an  inferior  brain  and  body.  A 
great  general,  like  Napoleon,  may  be  in  a  sense 
the  product  of  his  environment.  A  great 
inventor  like  Edison  may  be  forced  to  his 
highest  point  by  application  and  the  study  of 
science  applied  to  natural  law.  A  great 
philosopher  like  Socrates  may  be  developed 
through  the  channels  of  observation  and  the 
w^armth  of  his  heart.  A  great  financier  like 
Gould  or  Morgan  may  be  educated  to  suprem- 
acy in  the  school  of  business,  big  and  little. 
But  a  wise  lawgiver,  like  Solomon  or  Lincoln, 
is  not  born  of  the  flesh  but  of  the  spirit.  Jus- 
tice, the  sense  of  it  even,  cannot  be  put  into  a 
man's  brain  and  heart  by  any  process  of  edu- 
cation, or  environment,  or  experience. 

The  one  attribute  of  Abraham  Lincoln  that 
ruled  his  being  like  a  central  sun  was  Justice. 
All  other  attributes  circled  around  it  and  were 
governed  by  it.  You  may  call  it  Justice  or  you 
may  call  it  love.  It  matters  not,  for  there  is 
no  difference  in  the  quality  or  quantity  of  these 
two  words.  An  earthly  being  whose  motive 
power  is  justice  will  do  exactly  the  same  things 

[  3  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

under  the  same  circumstances  as  one  whose 
motive  power  is  love.  This  statement  is  capa- 
ble of  proof,  from  comparison  of  the  two  or 
three  figures  in  the  records  of  the  world  who 
have  best  represented  these  chief  attributes  of 
Deity. 

Lincoln  the  boy  was  as  just  as  Lincoln  the 
man.  He  required  no  precedent  on  which  to 
found  his  reasoning.  He  was  as  ready  as  Solo- 
mon to  give  his  decision  on  any  vital  point  and 
his  verdicts  were  as  simple  and  uncontroverti- 
ble. Born  and  reared  on  the  borderland 
between  states  that  were  divided  on  a  question 
which  had  reached  no  decisive  solution, 
through  all  the  ages,  outside  of  religious  phi- 
losophy, he  never  even  debated  it  in  his  own 
mind.  A  union  of  states  meant  the  union  of  the 
individual,  and  neither  was  open  to  secession. 

An  inharmonious  intellect  was  as  much  at 
war  with  itself,  in  his  high  temple  of  thought, 
as  an  inharmonious  state,  or  country,  or  king- 
dom. He  saw  in  the  Union  under  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence,  the  Union  of  the  indi- 
vidual— the  harmonious  man,  capable  of  self- 
government,  subject  to  no  man's  dictation,  as 

[4] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

far  as  the  life,  and  the  freedom  to  live  that  life, 
in  the  world  of  justice  could  be  carried:  such 
a  thing  as  human  ownership  of  another  human 
being  could  not  be,  in  the  thought  of  the  child 
or  the  man  Lincoln.  He  acknowledged  no 
allegiance  to  any  power  on  earth.  His  Creator 
was  his  sole  and  only  King.  The  union  of  the 
States  was  a  symbol  to  him  of  his  union  with 
God. 

Study  him  as  you  may,  by  his  own  words, 
by  the  records  made  of  him  through  his  inti- 
mates, and  by  his  acts,  and  you  will  find  no 
other  Lincoln  than  this.  If  the  times  in  which 
he  lived  brought  to  light  this  attribute  of  jus- 
tice in  all  its  pure  radiance,  that  does  not  argue 
that  the  times  were  the  cause  of  it.  Not  at  all. 
The  Union  had  hundreds  of  men  of  far  greater 
educational  virtues,  far  superior  culture,  far 
broader  experience,  and  of  no  less  human  sym- 
pathies— Wendell  Phillips,  William  Lloyd 
Garrison,  John  Brown,  Stephen  A.  Douglas, 
his  great  rival;  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Edwin  A. 
Stanton,  and  the  great  prime  minister,  Wil- 
liam H.  Seward ;  but  none  of  these  had  lighted 
in  his  soul  the  lamp  of  justice.     Not  one  of 

[  5  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

them  could  bring  himself  to  love  his  personal 
enemy:  much  less  the  enemies  of  his  theory 
of  government.  Lincoln  proved  himself  to  be 
compounded  of  Love  and  Justice,  so  absolutely 
so,  that  he  never  judged  any  man.  He  may 
have  punished  because  he  himself  obeyed  the 
law  of  justice,  but  he  did  not  cease  to  love. 

We  talk  of  democracy,  but  the  world  has 
known  but  few  democrats— perhaps  not  more 
than  two.  To  see  every  human  being  as  an 
equal  before  the  law  of  justice  is  impossible 
to  any  merely  educated  intelligence. 

The  eyes  that  look  upon  men,  as  the  rain 
falls,  alike  on  the  just  and  on  the  unjust,  are 
not  subject  to  the  light  of  libraries.  They  shine 
with  the  light  of  heaven.  No  mortal  reason 
can  bring  a  man  to  this  sublime  philosophy. 
Such  a  state  of  mind  is  foolishness  to  culture. 
Even  religious  enthusiasm  falls  far  short  of 
this  God-like  contemplation  of  the  things  of 
this  world.  But  Abraham  Lincoln  so  saw,  so 
felt,  so  understood.  Black  or  white,  bond  or 
free,  friend  or  enemy,  he  saw  them  all  in  love 
— "Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not 
what  they  do,"  speaks  out  boldly  in  his  every 

[  6  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

utterance,  beams  out  benignly  from  his  every 
act. 

The  books  that  have  been  written  in  an 
endeavor  to  express  their  authors'  reflection  of 
this  man  Lincoln,  now  make  a  large  library. 
But  not  one  of  them,  written  as  they  are  out 
of  the  best  heart's  love,  compares  with  the  man 
Lincoln,  or  begins  to  shine  with  his  illimitable 
personality.  Records  of  him  are  material.  He 
himself  was  a  living  flame,  burning  grandly, 
but  steadily,  making  plain  the  smallest  fibre 
of  any  fact  to  which  its  rays  were  directed. 
Such  a  man  is  beyond  description.  The  noblest 
mind  among  men  can  do  no  more  than  to 
appreciate  him  to  its  greatest  bent,  and  then  it 
finds  itself  only  in  the  borderland  of  his  clear 
thought.  What  matter  if  his  boots  were 
unblacked,  or  his  coat  ill-fitting.  There  was 
not  a  stain  upon  his  heart,  nor  a  wrinkle  in  his 
soul.  His  simplest  sentence  is  a  thunderbolt: 
his  fiercest  anathema  a  blessing.  He  walks 
the  land  today,  a  spirit  of  colossal  proportions 
by  which  men,  measured  by  their  words  and 
acts,  are  the  merest  pigmies. 

[  7  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Lincoln's  greatest  general  never  lost  a  battle, 
but  his  generalship  lasted  only  four  years,  and 
was  confined  to  the  government  and  science  of 
war.  Lincoln's  work  endured  from  the  cradle 
on  into  eternity,  and  his  battles  were  in  the 
highest  clouds  of  human  reason,  and  he  too 
never  lost  a  battle.  His  foot  never  took  a 
backward  step.  His  judgment  never  failed. 
Neither  did  his  love  pale  nor  his  justice  repent. 

Look  upon  that  homely  pictured  face  hang- 
ing upon  your  study  wall.  Do  you  not  feel  a 
new  warm  glow  in  your  heart?  Do  not  the 
mixed  reasons  in  your  brain  fall  into  sweet 
concord?  Does  not  humanity  show  itself  in 
gentler  aspects?  Do  not  personal  ambitions 
fade?  Do  not  animosities  die  away?  And  is 
there  not  somehow  born  in  your  whole  being 
a  consciousness  of  harmony  and  sweet  security 
for  the  eventual  salvation  of  the  peoples  of  the 
earth?  Such  is  the  immortal  influence  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  No  other  man  who  ever 
trod  the  earth  stands  as  close  to  the  heart  of 
the  world  as  Abraham  Lincoln,  save  He  who 
voiced  for  all  mankind  the  teaching,  that  was 
nearest  to  being  exemplified  among  mortals, 

[  8  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

by  this  cabin-born  son  of  American  pioneers, 
and  whose  going  out  from  this  life  wrought 
not  only  a  union  of  the  States,  but,  for  that 
hour  of  mourning  at  least,  the  Union  of  all  the 
peoples  of  the  earth. 

On  February  12th,  1809,  a  child  was  born 
in  whose  veins  flowed  the  pure  blood  of  pro- 
test against  every  form  of  despotism  and 
oppression.  That  child  was  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. The  most  exhaustive  research,  bearing 
upon  his  lineage,  fails  to  reveal  among  his 
ancestors  any  one  foreign  to  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race.  In  him  met  and  commingled  the  sturdy 
Puritan  Roundhead  of  Massachusetts  and  the 
chivalric  cavalier  of  old  Virginia.  Back  of 
that,  the  line  leads  to  the  two  divisions  of 
England's  best  blood,  facing  each  other  in  the 
historic  War  of  the  Roses.  Religious  coercion 
on  the  one  hand,  and  property  despotism  on  the 
other,  had  forced  the  Puritans  out  of  England 
to  the  inhospitable  shores  of  Massachusetts; 
the  unfortunate  and  pleasure-loving  debtor 
children  of  the  cavaliers  to  the  softer  climate 
of  the  Chesapeake.  In  this  new  environment, 
these  different  strains  of  Briton's  conquerors 

[9] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

were  again  pressed  together  for  self-preserva- 
tion ;  with  the  Mother  Country  hounding  them 
from  the  sea,  and  hordes  of  savages  threat- 
ening them  by  land,  the  American  Colonist 
wrested  freedom  from  the  one,  and  a  princely 
domain  from  the  other.  The  Roundheads, 
moving  westward  from  Massachusetts  into 
Pennsylvania,  and  thence  southward  into  Vir- 
ginia, and  the  cavaliers  journeying  from  the 
Chesapeake  into  Kentucky  and  Tennessee, 
became  one  again,  after  a  hundred  years  of 
separation,  in  a  race  of  hardy  pioneers;  in  a 
new  country,  which  was  the  immediate  refuge 
of  the  persecuted  and  oppressed  of  all  western 
Europe,  wherein  English,  Dutch,  Spanish, 
French  and  Portuguese  exiles  found  foothold 
and  clung  with  the  last  despairing  hope  of 
ultimate  freedom.  Abraham  Lincoln's  fore- 
fathers, paternal  and  maternal,  seem  never  to 
have  mated  outside  their  tribe.  By  the  process 
of  elimination,  the  great  Emancipator  stands 
out  as  the  purest  type  of  an  American,  whether 
he  be  considered  from  a  standpoint  of  ancestry 
or  achievement.  How  many  generations  of 
Protestant  dissenters,  of  Puritan  idealism,  of 

[  10  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

final  pilgrimage  into  the  savage  wilderness,  of 
cavalier  glory,  passionate  love  of  life,  and  ulti- 
mate poverty  and  woe,  v/ere  woven  and  knitted 
into  the  strange  child-life  that  Nancy  Hanks 
brought  into  the  world,  in  the  floorless  cabin, 
on  the  Kentucky  frontier!  What  memories  of 
good  fighting  on  sea  and  land,  of  Norsemen 
with  flowing  hair  shining  in  the  sun,  bearing 
down  upon  swarthy  Franks  who  met  them  in 
the  death  grapple  for  territorial  supremacy! 
What  subconscious  dreams  of  kingly  courts, 
of  brave  jousts  for  love  or  fame,  of  holy  Cru- 
sades, of  gradual  loss  of  religious  and  political 
freedom,  of  sturdy  rebellion,  of  bloody  inter- 
necine war,  of  sacrifice  and  persecution,  with 
the  primal  principle  of  self-government,  burn- 
ing forever  in  the  heart! 

When  the  original  seed  from  which  Abra- 
ham Lincoln  sprung  is  considered,  the  splen- 
did manhood  and  womanhood  that  culminated 
in  his  being,  is  not  so  much  a  matter  of  won- 
der: it  seems  more  like  the  positive  demonstra- 
tion of  a  scientific  fact. 

It  is,  or  seems  to  be,  a  provision  of  nature, 
that  her  very  greatest  children  should  have  the 

[  11  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

very  humblest  birth  and  childhood.  The 
Master  of  all  men  was  born  in  a  stable  and 
reared  amidst  poverty  and  toil.  The  master 
of  all  literature,  Shakespeare,  was  of  humble 
birth,  and  his  early  years  were  passed  in 
obscurity  and  privation.  Lincoln,  the  master 
of  all  Republican  rulers,  was  born  to  sorrow, 
privation,  toil,  and  the  most  meager  intellec- 
tual advantages.  His  childhood  and  youth 
were  passed  in  a  region  so  isolated,  and  among 
a  people  so  scattered  and  poverty  stricken,  that 
the  record  of  his  life,  as  he  himself  declared, 
can  be  compressed  into  a  single  line  of  Gray's 
Elegy, 

"The  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor." 

That  a  man  who  has  stamped  his  genius,  his 
personality,  his  unexampled  mind  and  char- 
acter, in  large  letters  upon  the  golden  pages  of 
the  world's  most  sublime  and  colossal  events, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  flooded  his  surroundings 
with  a  halo  of  purity,  gentleness  and  immeas- 
urable love,  will  always  be  a  matter  of  aston- 
ishment and  wonder.  To  penetrate  even  a 
little  way  into  his  great  heart,  and  see  even 
dimly  with  his  unclouded  vision,  the  under- 

[  12  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

lying  principle  of  human  life,  is  to  be  born 
again.  Nothing  short  of  Divine  inspiration 
can  give  the  measure  of  his  wisdom  and  uni- 
versal love. 

If  we  are  to  attribute  his  genius  to  the  evo- 
lution of  blood  and  birth,  we  must  see  in  one 
comprehensive  view,  the  Greek,  the  Roman, 
the  Gaul,  the  ancient  Hebrew,  and  the  Jew  of 
the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era,  the  Nor- 
man, the  Saxon,  the  Celt,  and  the  swiftly 
sweeping  pageantry  of  western  Europe,  with 
all  these  pouring  its  best  heart's  blood  into  the 
little  Island  of  Britain,  where  it  is  purified 
in  the  seething  melting  pot  of  struggle  for 
human  liberty,  to  flow  out  again  anew  into  the 
settlement  of  the  American  Colonies.  Here 
we  find  it  crystallizing  in  the  perfect  expres- 
sion of  all  human  rights,  human  hopes  and 
human  ideals,  in  the  one  greatest  world's  sen- 
tence: "We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evi- 
dent, that  all  men  are  created  equal,  that  they 
are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain 
unalienable  rights,  that  among  these  are  life, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  Fur- 
ther than  this,  the  mind  of  man  cannot  go; 

[  13  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

higher  it  cannot  reach;  deeper  it  cannot  pene- 
trate; more  just  or  merciful  it  cannot  be. 

Here  is  reached  the  loftiest  conception  of 
life,  among  a  noble  and  perfected  people. 
That  such  a  state  of  existence  has  never  been 
approached  upon  this  earth,  does  not  weaken 
in  the  least  the  force  and  substance  of  this 
highest  truth.  As  the  human  heart  conceived 
it  and  gave  it  form  and  utterance,  so  the 
human  heart  everywhere  and  under  all  cir- 
cumstances, recognizes  the  glorious  possibility 
of  its  final  achievement,  and  the  humblest 
and  most  ignorant  conceive  somewhat  of  the 
blessed  state  of  life  in  such  a  society;  and  it 
was  the  application  of  this  perfect  principle 
of  government  to  all  the  affairs  of  life,  that 
made  Abraham  Lincoln  the  foremost  figure 
in  his  day  and  which  is  lifting  him  higher  and 
higher  in  the  scale  of  human  greatness,  as  the 
years  go  by. 

For  every  child  born  into  the  world,  there 
is  a  stir  in  the  universe.  It  cannot  be  other- 
wise, if  men  are  souls,  and  the  children  of 
God.  Human  life  attains  dignity,  as  we  real- 
ize   this   stupendous    fact.     Each    individual 

[  14  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

coming  and  going  in  the  earth-world  must 
have  a  meaning,  must  be  a  definite  and  authen- 
ticated note  in  the  composition  of  life:  other- 
wise, there  can  be  no  meaning  in  the  statement 
on  which  the  government  of  America  is 
founded.  Unless  men  are  born  with  equal 
privileges  to  struggle,  and  strive,  and  rise  to 
the  heights  of  their  nature,  there  is  nothing 
either  just  or  merciful  in  the  scheme  of  things. 

In  the  drama  of  today,  characters  are  cast 
for  each  part.  The  story  of  all  human  en- 
deavor, once  it  has  passed  into  history,  shows 
each  incident,  each  act,  to  have  been  well  con- 
sidered, each  event  to  have  its  correct  place  in 
the  unfoldment  of  history,  whether  it  be  that 
of  a  man  or  a  nation.  Each  epoch  has  its  cen- 
tral figure,  and  over  against  this  mighty  genius 
is  set  a  number  of  contrasting  figures,  ambi- 
tious either  to  rise  with  the  mighty  one,  or  to 
overthrow  him  and  triumph  above  his  ashes. 

Such  a  world-soul  was  Abraham  Lincoln. 
Into  the  New-Old  Confederation  of  States,  he 
came  to  weld  them  into  a  political  monism,  a 
union  indivisable;  a  government  in  which 
each  and  every  individual,  born  American,  or 

[  15  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

achieving  that  relationship  through  acquired 
legal  citizenship,  has  equal  power  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  government,  with  every  other  indi- 
vidual. The  advent  of  this  kindly  man  upon 
the  arena  of  American  politics,  when  the  ques- 
tion arose  as  to  what  kind  of  a  government  the 
United  States  had,  was  providential.  Under 
his  master  hand  the  Union  was  firmly  estab- 
lished, the  v^^hipping  post  forever  abolished, 
and  four  millions  of  human  beings  set  free. 

Centuries  had  been  preparing  for  such  a 
man.  The  old  Hebrew  prophets  lived  and 
uttered  their  unequaled  wisdom,  that  it  might 
leaven  the  thought  and  culture  of  the  ages. 
The  lowly  Nazarene  declared  the  truth  of 
man's  divinity,  that  the  light  of  liberty  might 
never  go  out  of  the  world.  Into  western 
Europe  poured  the  best  blood  of  all  the  ancient 
peoples,  and  finally  in  the  Island  of  Britain 
came  the  day  when  the  printed  Bible  was  on 
the  table  of  every  family,  and  the  spirit  of  it 
became  the  very  life  blood  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race.  Then  when,  because  of  this  very  book, 
bitter  persecution  drove  honest  men  and 
women  to  brave  the  hardships  and  dangers  of 

[  16  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

the  new  world,  this  same  book  became  the 
chief  corner  stone  in  the  government  of  the 
colonies. 

As  is  so  finely  said  by  the  learned  Doctor 
Levy:  "The  advent  of  men  of  genius  is  an 
inexplicable  event.  They  are  the  unantici- 
pated lightning  flashes  in  a  wintry  sky.  They 
illuminate  the  horizon  like  an  unexpected 
Aurora  Borealis.  They  break  chains.  They 
loosen  fetters.  They  rend  shackles.  They 
depose  policy  and  enthrone  principle.  They 
pierce  the  demons  of  injustice  with  the  glit- 
tering sword  of  right.  They  are  as  dew  in  the 
heat  of  conflict,  and  water  to  the  soul  that 
thirsts.  In  a  word,  they  are  the  incarnation  of 
the  Spirit  of  God.  Like  the  breaking  of  the 
dawn  they  come,  the  bringers  of  good  tidings. 
They  are  the  heroes  of  a  new  era.  *  *  * 
They  sow  spiritual  seed.  They  lead  many 
unto  righteousness.  The  cause  of  God  pros- 
pers in  their  hands.  *  *  *  Upon  their 
shoulders  is  placed  the  task  of  bearing  the  bur- 
dens of  human  suffering.  Upon  their  tragic 
faces  are  burned  the  rugged  lines  of  care. 
Gaunt  and  unlovely  in  appearance,  awkward 

[  17  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

and  often  unpolished  in  speech,  unwilling  to 
bend  the  knee  to  the  Baal  of  social  convention, 
they  are  hated  and  despised  of  their  age.  They 
are  the  men  who  hear  the  voice  of  God  speak- 
ing from  the  flaming  heights,  aye,  from  the 
Sinai  of  the  human  heart.  Thev  are  the  men 
who  see  God  in  the  wilderness;  they  speak  to 
Him  face  to  face.  They  follow  Him.  They 
cannot  turn  back.  A  long-ranged  view  of 
humanity  is  granted  them.  They  cannot  be 
untrue  to  the  heavenly  vision.  Right  and  jus- 
tice, truth  and  goodness  are  the  accents  they 
hear  with  the  spiritual  organ  of  an  inspired 
imagination.  They  cannot  if  they  would,  be 
faithless  to  the  eternal  music  of  the  spheres. 
Grim  and  grave  they  are,  set  of  jaw  and  firm 
of  purpose.  They  can  die,  but  they  cannot  and 
will  not  lie.  When  in  the  silent  watches  of 
the  night  others  sleep,  they  hold  communion 
with  the  spirit  of  the  universe.  When  others 
are  occupied  building  fortunes  up  to  the  heav- 
ens, only  to  hide  heaven  from  the  view,  they 
are  exploring  the  elemental  truths  of  human 
existence  and  pledging  their  all  in  defense  of 
them. 

[  18  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"When  these  men  of  moral  genius  have  seen 
from  afar  the  Land  of  Promise;  when  God  has 
vouchsafed  to  them  a  vision  of  the  City  Beau- 
tiful; when  there  flashes  upon  their  inner  con- 
sciousness a  picture  of  aNew Jerusalem; when 
they  dream  of  the  City  whose  name  is  right- 
eousness, whose  walls  are  holiness,  whose  ruler 
is  equity,  and  whose  defense  is  love;  they  can- 
not eat,  they  cannot  sleep,  they  cannot  drink, 
until  they  have  shared  with  others  that  which 
God  has  vouchsafed  to  them.  Like  lofty 
mountain  peaks,  they  stand  alone.  They 
desire  solitude  for  a  time.  They  speak  with 
God  and  bring  unbreakable  tables  of  right  and 
truth  to  their  fellow  men.  These  men  are  the 
salt  of  the  earth.  They  are  the  saviours  of 
mankind.  Among  every  race  such  men  are  to 
be  found.  Wherever  God's  sun  illuminates 
the  earth,  there  at  some  time  or  another,  such 
men  have  arisen  to  witness  to  the  light,  to  be 
spokesmen  for  the  causes  dear  to  the  Heart 
of  God." 

So  the  genealogy  of  the  great  Emancipator 
should  begin  with  Socrates  and  touch  upon 
every  mountain  peak  of  human  love  and  uni- 

[  19  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

versal  brotherhood  through  all  the  ages.  It  is 
not  over-stepping  the  bonds  of  conscientious- 
ness, to  feel  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was  the 
blood-brother  of  those  few  universal  seers  and 
saviours,  who  stand  in  the  white  light  of 
supreme  and  unfaltering  love  upon  the  Gol- 
gothas  of  glorious  martyrdom. 

All  human  records  are  but  broken  frag- 
ments of  man's  progress  onward  from  slime 
and  ooze,  from  cave  and  cabin,  to  the  present 
hour,  when  thought  is  flashed  around  the 
world  almost  before  the  lips  that  utter  it  rest 
after  the  efifort.  Those  who  have  been  most 
painstaking  to  keep  complete  from  root  to 
topmost  bough  the  family  tree,  must  generally 
be  satisfied  with  the  effort  itself.  The  world 
seldom  has  cause  to  search  such  records  for  the 
genealogy  of  a  pronounced  character.  Nature 
seems  to  delight  in  playing  tricks  with  pride 
in  personality.  Perhaps  the  All-Father  would 
teach  His  children,  in  this  way,  their  utter 
dependence  upon  Him,  and  grind  it  into 
human  consciousness  that  man  has  but  one 
Father,  even  God. 

Abraham  Lincoln  is  so  selected  and  distin- 
guished.   His  progenitors  were  a  rugged  and 

[  20  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

honest  race,  as  the  book  of  his  genealogy 
proves;  this  plain,  simple  man  of  the  people 
might  have  traced  his  ancestry  back  to  the  best 
blood  of  England.  The  table  of  his  genealogy 
shows  this  surprising  fact,  that  the  Lincoln 
stock,  the  branch  at  least  which  produced 
Abraham  Lincoln,  by  some  indefinable  law, 
which  we  must  ascribe  to  Divine  Providence 
(for  it  is  too  clear  and  direct  to  be  the  result 
of  chance),  kept  itself  pure  to  its  ancestral 
stock.  Even  the  same  family  names  recur 
again  and  again,  generation  after  generation, 
Biblical  names  for  the  most  part,  with  always 
an  Abraham,  as  though,  like  the  Children  of 
Israel,  they  were  awaiting  the  birth  of  the 
divinely  commissioned  to  lift  humanity  one 
step  higher  in  the  understanding  of  itself,  and 
make  one  ray  clearer,  what  are  the  just  and 
happy  relations  of  men,  the  one  with  another. 

"The  color  of  the  ground  was  in  him,  the  red  earth : 
The  tang  and  odor  of  the  primal  things — 
The  rectitude  and  patience  of  the  rocks ; 
The  gladness  of  the  wind  that  shakes  the  corn ; 
The  courage  of  the  bird  that  dares  the  sea ; 
The  justice  of  the  rain  that  loves  all  leaves; 
The  pity  of  snow  that  hides  all  scars ; 

[  21  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

The  loving  kindness  of  the  wayside  well ; 
The  tolerance  and  equity  of  light 
That  gives  as  freely  to  the  shrinking  weed 
As  to  the  great  oak  flaring  to  the  wind — 
To  the  grave's  low  hill  as  the  Matterhorn 
That  shoulders  out  the  sky." 

As  an  epoch  of  human  history  becomes 
remote,  there  is  visible,  to  the  eyes  of  those 
who  see,  the  figure  of  some  man  who  is  recog- 
nized as  its  great  embodiment.  The  golden 
age  of  Greece  is  summed  up  in  Pericles. 
Julius  CfEsar  was  the  supreme  expression  of  an 
age  of  power  and  law.  The  great  Cromwell 
interpreted  the  English  protest  against  every 
form  of  despotism.  At  this  distance  from  the 
sixties,  and  that  great,  sad  struggle,  it  is  appar- 
ent that  the  colossal  form  rising  above  all  oth- 
ers, is  the  weird  figure  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  story  of  that  boy  as  he  grew  to  man- 
hood is  now  a  household  legend,  cherished  in 
every  American  home:  a  chore  boy  at  seven- 
teen, six  feet  four  in  his  stockings — when  he 
had  any;  a  rail  splitter;  a  farm  hand;  a  clerk 
in  the  country  store  of  Denton-OfJut  &  Com- 
pany, at  New  Salem;  so  honest  that  when  one 
day  he  took  six  cents  over  much  from  a  cus- 

[22  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

tomer,  he  could  not  go  to  bed  until  that  even- 
ing, after  his  day's  work,  he  walked  three 
miles  into  the  country  to  pay  back  the  money; 
a  champion  wrestler;  a  story  teller,  enchanting 
the  village  with  his  droll  tales;  a  captain  in 
the  Black  Hawk  War;  a  member  of  the 
unlucky  firm  of  Berry  &  Lincoln,  the  latter  of 
whom  sprawled  on  the  store  counter,  or  on  the 
grass  in  the  orchard,  reading  Blackstone,  while 
his  dissolute  partner  drank  whiskey;  a  bank- 
rupt, whose  store  had  winked  out  and  left  him, 
so  he  said,  with  the  national  debt  of  eleven 
hundred  dollars  on  his  hands;  a  postmaster, 
carrying  the  mail  around  in  his  hat;  a  deputy 
surveyor,  whose  instruments  were  sold  for 
debt;  an  almost  desperate  lover,  grieving  for 
Ann  Rutledge;  a  candidate  for  the  legislature, 
and  not  a  very  promising  one  either,  in  a 
mixed  green  coat,  flax  and  tow  linen  panta- 
loons, a  straw  hat  and  pot  metal  boots,  a 
wardrobe  hardly  up  even  to  the  Sangamon 
County  standard.  Fortunately  the  good  peo- 
ple of  his  country  knew  that  clothes  do  not 
make  men,  and  they  soon  discovered  that  in 
intelligent  capacity  and  in  loftiness  of  purpose 

[  23  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

he  exceeded  all  the  candidates.  Of  his  experi- 
ence as  a  legislator;  of  his  triumphs  during  his 
twenty- five  years'  practice  at  the  Illinois  bar; 
of  his  famous  speech  at  the  Springfield  con- 
vention, when,  as  he  put  it,  willing  to  go  down, 
linked  to  the  truth  in  the  advocacy  of  what 
was  just  and  right,  he  said:  "A  house  divided 
against  itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe  this  gov- 
ernment cannot  endure  permanently  half  slave 
and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to 
be  dissolved.  I  do  not  expect  the  house  to  fall. 
But  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided"; 
and  of  his  nomination  and  election  to  the 
Presidency,  I  need  not  here  speak  in  detail. 
It  is  enough  to  say  that  in  all  these,  we  find 
the  same  man,  shrewd,  sturdy,  unconventional, 
sympathetic,  always  eager  to  play  fair,  with  a 
keen  sense  of  humor,  but  with  the  deep  under- 
tone of  melancholy,  which  does  not  allow  us 
to  forget  the  mother  buried  in  the  forest  clear- 
ing. As  Mr.  Pillsbury  says:  "How  strange 
and  startling  are  the  dramatic  shifts  of  scene 
and  circumstance  that  attend  the  unfolding  of 
this  unique  character.  The  forlorn  backwoods 
boy  turns  out  to  be  the  appointed  head  of  a 

[  24  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

great  nation,  in  a  crisis  affecting  the  fate  of  the 
world.  The  obscure  country  lawyer  reveals 
in  a  phrase  what  a  people  is  waiting  to  hear, 
and  becomes  in  a  day  the  prophet  of  a  cause. 
The  uncouth  westerner  from  the  prairies, 
unpracticed  in  arms,  or  in  statescraft,  outmas- 
ters  the  statesmen,  outwits  the  diplomatists, 
gives  the  generals  their  plan  of  campaign. 
The  unlettered  man  of  the  people  speaks  lofty 
eloquence  soon  to  become  classic.  The  raw 
politician,  who  never  held  public  power  for  a 
day,  takes  the  helm  of  state,  when  the  ship  is 
already  on  the  rocks,  when  all  the  pilots  and 
captains  stand  helpless  and  appalled,  to  bring 
her  in  safety  and  triumph  through  the  storm. 
The  awkward  clown,  reviled  and  lampooned 
over  two  continents,  in  four  years  is  canonized 
by  mankind.  Without  training,  without  exter- 
nal attractions,  without  worldly  advantage, 
this  child  of  poor  frontier  folk  makes  his  way 
out  of  the  wilderness  to  fix  for  all  time  the  eyes 
of  the  world  upon  him,  as  a  leader  of  the  peo- 
ple, the  liberator  of  the  slave,  the  deliverer  of 
his  country,  and  in  another  turn  of  the  kalei- 
doscope, to  be  numbered  with  the  glorious 

[  25  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

company  of  the  martyrs  and  with  Thy  saints 
in  glory  everlasting." 

When  the  Republican  convention  met  in 
Chicago  in  1860,  the  name  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln was  not  much  known  beyond  the  narrow 
confines  of  his  own  state.  He  had  gained  cer- 
tain prominence  in  his  debates  with  Douglas, 
but  he  had  been  rejected  by  the  state  in  his 
fight  for  the  senatorship.  Here  again  was  a 
case  where  the  stone  which  the  builders 
rejected  was  destined  in  the  Providence  of 
God  to  become  the  head  of  the  corner — and 
to  a  great  majority  of  the  men  composing  the 
Republican  party,  he  was  not  thought  to  be  a 
serious  presidential  possibility.  The  name 
which  was  most  prominently  before  the  Re- 
publicans was  that  of  William  H.  Seward  of 
New  York.  He  was  the  recognized  leader  of 
the  Republican  party,  and,  speaking  broadly, 
the  country  expected  him  to  receive  the  nom- 
ination. That  Seward  expected  to  be  nom- 
inated is  beyond  question.  He  had  resigned 
from  the  United  States  Senate,  and  had  gath- 
ered his  friends  around  him,  in  his  home  at 
Auburn,  and  was  awaiting  the  message  which 

[  26  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

should  announce  to  him  that  he  was  the  stand- 
ard-bearer of  the  then  new  Republican  party. 
The  result  of  that  convention  we  all  know. 
The  message  announcing  Seward's  nomination 
did  not  come,  but,  instead,  a  message  came 
bearing  the  startling  intelligence  that  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  the  country  lawyer  of  Illinois, 
had  been  chosen.  But  even  after  Lincoln  was 
nominated,  a  large  percentage  of  the  Repub- 
licans felt  that  the  choice  of  the  convention 
was  an  unwise  one,  and  that,  after  all,  Seward 
was  the  only  man  worthy  of  the  full  confidence 
of  the  party.  They  reasoned:  ^'Seward  is  a 
tried  and  trusted  statesman,  his  long  and  useful 
experience  as  Governor  of  New  York,  and  as 
Senator  from  that  State,  have  given  ample 
executive  and  legislative  experience,"  and,  as 
they  themselves  said:  "The  nomination  of 
Lincoln  was  the  triumph  of  unobjectionable 
mediocrity  over  greatness,  which  had  of  neces- 
sity, during  a  long  series  of  public  services, 
raised  up  many  enemies  to  itself." 

"The  result  of  the  Chicago  convention," 
wrote  the  committee  to  Seward,  "has  been 
more  than  a  surprise  to  the  Republicans  of 

[  27  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

New  York.  That  you  who  have  been  the 
earliest  defender  of  Republican  principles — 
the  acknowledged  head  and  leader  of  the 
party,  who  have  given  directions  to  its  move- 
ments and  form  and  substance  to  its  acts — that 
you  should  have  been  put  aside  upon  the  nar- 
row ground  of  expediency,  we  can  hardly 
realize  or  believe.  Whatever  the  decision  of 
this,  or  a  hundred  other  conventions,  we  rec- 
ognize in  you  the  real  leader  of  the  Republi- 
can party;  and  the  citizens  of  every  State  and 
of  all  creeds  and  parties,  and  the  history  of 
our  country  will  confirm  this  judgment." 

It  is  but  just,  however,  to  say  that  despite 
this  feeling,  Seward  did  not  even  for  a  moment 
forget  his  allegiance  to  the  great  principles  of 
his  party,  and  threw  himself  heart  and  soul 
into  the  campaign  and  worked  with  a  vigor 
and  eloquence  which  did  much  to  accomplish 
the  glorious  results,  and  yet  withal,  the  opinion 
of  the  great  prime  minister  regarding  Lincoln 
had  not  changed.  He  still  considered  him  a 
weak  and  untried  man,  and  his  personal  letters 
of  this  period  revealed  the  startling  fact  that 
he  (Seward)  regarded  himself  as  the  only  per- 

[  28  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

son  capable  of  preserving  the  Union,  and  his 
acceptance  of  the  portfolio  of  State  was  in 
view  of  the  necessity  of  some  strong  and  able 
hand  to  guide  the  destinies  of  the  incoming 
administration.  Lincoln  was  deeply  sensible 
of  this  criticism,  and  he  felt  the  estimate  in 
which  he  was  held  by  the  great  men  of  his  own 
party.  There  is  a  note  of  sadness  in  his  tone  as 
he  leaves  Springfield  for  Washington  on  the 
11th  day  of  February,  1861,  which,  in  part  at 
least,  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  his  knowledge 
of  the  mental  attitude  of  his  associates  in  the 
tremendous  undertaking  which  was  before 
him: 

"My  friends:  No  one,  not  in  my  situation, 
can  appreciate  my  feeling  of  sadness  at  this 
parting.  To  this  place  and  to  the  kindness  of 
these  people,  I  owe  everything.  Here  I  have 
lived  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  have  passed 
from  a  voung  man  to  an  old  man.  Here  my 
children  have  been  born,  and  one  is  buried.  I 
now  leave,  not  knowing  when,  or  whether 
ever,  I  may  return,  with  a  task  before  me 
greater  than  that  which  rested  upon  Washing- 
ton.    Without  the  assistance  of  that  Divine 

[  29  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Being  Who  ever  attended  him,  I  cannot  suc- 
ceed. With  that  assistance,  I  cannot  fail. 
Trusting  in  Him  Who  can  go  with  me,  and 
remain  with  you,  and  be  everywhere  for  good, 
let  us  confidently  hope  that  all  will  yet  be  well. 
To  His  care  commending  you,  as  I  hope  in 
your  prayers  you  will  commend  me,  I  bid  you 
an  afifectionate  farewell." 

Washington  had  at  least  the  confidence  and 
respect  of  his  associates  in  his  great  struggle, 
but  this  brave,  lonely  soul  left  his  home  in  the 
simple  village  to  assume  responsibilities  so  tre- 
mendous and  overwhelming,  and  yet  without 
the  full  measure  of  the  confidence  and  respect 
of  those  who  were  jointly  interested  with  him 
in  the  notable  endeavors — and  how  won- 
drously  did  he,  step  by  step,  overcome  the 
prejudices  of  his  fellows,  until  they  were  at 
least  ready,  all,  to  bow  the  knee,  and  proclaim 
him  master.  Passing  over  the  attempt  of  Sew- 
ard to  revise  the  inaugural  address  by  leaving 
out  the  clause :  "to  hold,  occupy  and  possess  the 
property  and  places  belonging  to  the  govern- 
ment," and  his  bitter  and  forceful  attempts  to 
prevent  "bread  being  sent  to  Anderson,"  which 

[  30  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

v/as  the  President's  expression  for  sending 
relief  to  Fort  Sumpter — we  come  to  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  events  in  our  history,  namely, 
a  member  of  the  official  family  of  the  Presi- 
dent, demanding  in  a  letter  that  the  President 
surrender  the  management  of  the  government 
to  him.  This,  Mr.  Seward  did  in  a  memoran- 
dum, entitled,  "Some  Thoughts  for  the  Presi- 
dent's Consideration."  This  letter  is  after  all 
one  of  the  most  extraordinary  pieces  of  efifront- 
ery  ever  uttered.  This  remarkable  document 
asserts  that  the  administration,  after  a  month, 
is  without  a  policy,  foreign  or  domestic.  In 
closing,  after  advising  that  explanations  were 
to  be  demanded  of  England,  Spain,  France 
and  Russia,  and  if  some  satisfactory  answers 
were  not  received,  then  war  should  be  de- 
clared, he  says: 

"Whatever  policy  we  adopt,  there  must  be 
energetic  prosecution  of  it.  For  this  purpose, 
it  must  be  somebody's  business  to  pursue  and 
direct  it,  incessantly.  Either  the  President 
must  do  it  himself,  and  be  all  the  while  active 
in  it,  or  devolve  it  upon  some  member  of  his 
cabinet.    Once  adopted,  all  debates  on  it  must 

[  31  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

end,  and  all  agree  and  abide.  It  is  not  in  my 
especial  province;  but  I  neither  seek  to  evade 
or  assume  responsibility." 

To  this,  the  President  replied  that  the 
domestic  policy  of  the  administration  was  to 
be  found  in  the  inaugural  address,  and  that 
the  foreign  policy  was  contained  in  the  circu- 
lars and  instructions  already  issued  to  minis- 
ters and  the  like,  all  in  perfect  harmony,  with- 
out even  a  suggestion  that  we  had  no  foreign 
policy.  Upon  the  closing  proposal,  that  the 
responsibility  must  rest  somewhere,  and  abso- 
lute authority  be  given  some  one,  Mr.  Lincoln 
said: 

"I  remark  that  if  this  must  be  done,  I  must 
do  it.  When  a  general  line  of  policy  is 
adopted,  I  apprehend  there  is  no  danger  of  its 
being  changed  without  good  reason,  or  con- 
tinue to  be  a  subject  of  unnecessary  debate; 
still  upon  points  arising  in  its  progress,  I  wish 
and  suppose  I  am  entitled  to  have  the  advice 
of  all  the  cabinet." 

Am  I  not  right  in  saying  that  if  Mr.  Sew- 
ard's "Thoughts  for  the  President's  Consid- 
eration," is  a  remarkable  document,  that  Lin- 

[  32  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

coin's  reply  is  thrice  remarkable?  Has  the 
world  another  parallel  of  such  magnanimity? 
As  Alonzo  Rothschild  says :  "Having  quietly 
settled  the  question  of  supremacy,  Mr.  Lincoln 
put  the  ^Thoughts'  away  among  his  personal 
papers,  where  they  remained  until  his  private 
secretaries,  years  after  both  statesmen  had 
passed  from  the  scene,  published  them  to  an 
astonished  world.  Excepting  Mr.  Nicolay, 
nobody  else  apparently  knew  of  their  exist- 
ence, for  the  one  to  whom  they  were  addressed 
never,  it  is  believed,  spoke  of  them,  not  even  to 
the  Secretary  of  State  himself.  If  that  gentle- 
man, when  he  received  his  answer,  had  any 
lingering  doubts  as  to  the  President's  superi- 
ority over  him,  they  must  have  been  dismissed, 
when  he  realized  how  entirely  Mr.  Lincoln 
disdained  to  take  advantage  of  a  weapon, 
which  in  the  grasp  of  most  politicians  would, 
under  the  circumstances,  have  been  used  to 
destroy  the  maker.  If  ever  a  public  man  held 
a  formidable  rival  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand, 
here  was  an  instance  of  it.  Yet  Gulliver  set- 
ting down  unharmed  the  Liliputian  who  had 
tormented  him,  behaved  not  more  gently  than 

[  33  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 
did  the  President  toward  his  presumptuous 


minister." 


Thus  ended  Mr.  Seward's  dream  of  domin- 
ation. Thus  began  the  revision  of  his  opinions. 
Thus  began  the  common  understanding,  which 
grew  day  by  day  into  a  love,  and  finally  a 
veneration  and  reverence  until  with  old 
Adam,  Seward  was  wont  to  cry  out: 

"Master,  go  on,  and  I  will  follow  thee 
To  the  last  gasp  with  faith  and  loyalty." 

With  a  grace  peculiarly  his  own,  Seward 
adapted  himself  to  the  new  conditions,  his 
every  action  thereafter  seems  to  say: 

"Pardon,  I  beseech  you 
Henceforward  I  am  ever  ruled  by  you." 

How  quickly  sometimes  conditions  change. 
Not  many  months  after  the  incidents  referred 
to,  a  change  had  come  over  the  general  senti- 
ments of  the  country,  and  many  dissatisfied 
Republicans  in  New  England  sought  to  dis- 
credit Mr.  Seward  in  the  eyes  of  the  Presi- 
dent. In  fact,  in  September,  1862,  a  commit- 
tee called  on  Mr.  Lincoln,  representing  not 
only  the  dissatisfied  Republicans  of  New 
York,  but  five  New  England  Governors  also. 

[  34  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

They  practically  demanded  such  a  change  of 
policy  as  could  but  result  in  the  dismissal  of 
Mr.  Seward  from  the  cabinet.  The  President, 
perceiving  that  their  criticism  was  based  upon 
personal  feeling,  dismissed  them  with  this 
short  and  forceful  sentence :  "You  gentlemen, 
to  hang  Mr.  Seward,  would  destroy  the  gov- 
ernment." Later  in  the  same  year  at  a  caucus 
of  Republican  Senators,  it  was  voted  to  de- 
mand that  Seward  be  dismissed,  but  even  with 
such  powerful  enemies,  Lincoln's  fidelity  and 
love  for  his  great  Prime  Minister  did  not  fal- 
ter; he  defended  him  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  and  retained  him  as  his  friend  and 
colleague  unto  the  end. 

Well  might  Emerson  say:  "His  heart  was 
as  great  as  the  world,  but  there  was  no  room 
in  it  to  hold  the  memory  of  a  wrong."  Well 
indeed  might  Longfellow,  writing  to  his 
friend,  say:  "To  understand  the  heart  of  the 
President,  is  to  know  the  beauty  of  the  Heart 
of  the  Son  of  Man." 

Rising  in  the  House  of  Commons,  when  the 
news  of  the  death  of  Lincoln  reached  England, 
Benjamin  Disraeli,  Earl  of  Beaconsfield,  said: 

[  35  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"Whatever  the  various  or  varying  opinions,  in 
this  House,  and  in  the  country  generally,  on 
the  policy  of  the  late  President  of  the  United 
States,  all  must  agree  that  in  one  of  the  severest 
trials  that  ever  tested  the  moral  qualities  of 
man,  he  fulfilled  his  duty  with  simplicity  and 
strength." 

He  mastered  the  great  men  about  him,  not 
because  he  was  President.  His  mastery  was  of 
another  kind ;  great  enough  to  confess  his  own 
wrong,  great  enough  to  follow  the  advice  of 
his  associates;  great  enough  also,  in  the  last 
analysis,  to  remain  firm  when  he  was  con- 
victed of  the  righteousness  and  justice  of  his 
opinion,  against  any  or  all  of  his  advisers  and 
friends;  great  enough  to  overlook  personal 
insults  and  repeated  disrespect,  if  the  cause  of 
union  and  liberty  were  to  be  aided  thereby.  His 
relation  not  only  with  Secretary  Seward,  but 
also  with  Secretaries  Chase  and  Stanton, 
exhibits  enough  of  the  magnanimous  nature  of 
this  mountain-hearted  man  to  give  us  a  broad 
understanding  of  the  stupendous  fact,  that  the 
law  of  love  was  the  dominating  and  all  pow- 
erful trait  in  the  character  of  Abraham  Lin- 

[  36  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

coin.  Other  men  who  have  won  distinction  in 
the  annals  of  our  history,  may  lay  claim  to 
greatness  by  reason  of  their  intellectual  attain- 
ments; by  reason  of  indomitable  force  of  their 
characters;  but  Lincoln  stands  alone  as  the  one 
man  who,  in  the  midst  of  strife  and  disaster, 
in  the  midst  of  treachery  and  treason,  in  the 
midst  of  backbiting  and  calumny,  stood  and 
wielded  his  influence,  not  by  the  force  of  his 
position,  but  by  the  compelling  power  of  love, 
and  I  trust  I  may  not  be  accused  of  any  sacri- 
legious or  irreverent  remark,  when  I  tell  you 
that  his  character  more  nearly  resembles  the 
character  of  Him  Who  was  the  Saviour  of 
mankind,  than  the  character  of  any  other  man 
noted  in  the  history  of  our  country.  It  has 
been  repeatedly  said  that  Lincoln  was  only  an 
echo;  that  the  great  men  about  him  ruled  and 
dominated  him;  that  he  was  the  creature  of 
his  cabinet.  The  controversy  between  Mont- 
gomery Blair  and  General  Halleck  is  an 
instance  of  his  matchless  magnanimity. 

Mr.  Blair,  as  Postmaster  General,  had  made 
some  disparaging  remarks  concerning  the 
army,   and   General   Halleck   resented   these 

[  37  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

remarks.  Flis  case  was  taken  up  by  Secre- 
taries Stanton  and  Chase,  and  they  endeavored 
to  secure  Mr.  Blair's  removal  from  the  cab- 
inet. When  the  matter  was  brought  to  the  at- 
tention of  the  President,  and  he  was  appealed 
to,  to  dismiss  Mr.  Blair  from  the  cabinet,  he 
prepared  the  following  address,  which  he 
delivered  to  his  ministers: 

"I  must  myself  be  the  judge  how  long  to 
retain  and  when  to  remove  any  one  of  you 
from  his  position.  It  would  greatly  pain  me 
to  discover  any  of  you  endeavoring  to  procure 
another's  removal,  or  in  any  way  to  prejudice 
him  before  the  public.  Such  endeavor  would 
be  a  wrong  to  me,  and  much  worse,  a  wrong  to 
the  country.  My  wish  is  that  on  this  subject 
no  remark  be  made,  or  questions  asked  by  any 
of  you  here  or  elsewhere,  now  or  hereafter." 

This  address  has  somewhat  the  tone  of  a 
schoolmaster  lecturing  a  class  of  unruly  boys, 
and,  to  any  candid  mind,  must  put  to  rest  for- 
ever the  insinuation  that  he  was  anything  but 
the  master  giving  his  explicit  and  imperative 
directions  to  his  subordinates. 

[  38  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINXOLN 

This  little  address  should  be  read  by  all  who 
are  misled  into  the  belief  that  Lincoln  was  not 
an  authority'  in  the  administration  that  bears 
his  name.  And,  moreover,  there  is,  even  in 
this  address,  forceful  and  powerful  as  it  is,  the 
gentle  element  of  love  which  pervades  every- 
thing that  came  from  his  majestic  pen. 

Lincoln  did  not  approve  of  the  disparaging 
remarks  which  were  made  by  Mr.  Blair,  but 
he  felt  that  they  were  not  sufficient  in  them- 
selves to  make  it  necessan,-  for  him  to  inflict 
upon  Mr.  Blair  the  humiliation  of  being  asked 
to  leave  the  cabinet,  and  he  was  unwilling  to 
injure  the  feelings  of  this  very  good  and  patri- 
otic man,  unless  the  question  at  issue  was  a 
vital  one. 

This  same  characteristic  is  most  wonder- 
fully shown  in  the  letter  which  he  writes  to 
General  Hooker.  In  giving  General  Hooker 
the  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
Lincoln  had  many  misgivings,  and  he  was  par- 
ticularly anxious  that  Hooker  should  under- 
stand that  he  had  been  guilt\"  of  gross  unkind- 
ness  to  his  superior  officers,  but  despite  the 
fact,  the  administration  was  willing  to  give  to 

[  39  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

him  all  the  support  that  was  possible  to  give  a 
commanding  officer.    He  writes : 

"General,  I  have  placed  you  at  the  head  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  Of  course,  I  have 
done  this  upon  what  appears  to  me  to  be  suf- 
ficient reasons,  and  yet  I  think  it  best  for  you 
to  know  that  there  are  some  things  in  regard 
to  which  I  am  not  quite  satisfied  with  you. 

"I  believe  you  are  a  brave  and  skillful  sol- 
dier, which,  of  course,  I  like.  I  also  believe 
you  do  not  mix  in  politics  with  your  profes- 
sion, in  which  you  are  right.  You  have  confi- 
dence in  yourself,  which  is  a  valuable,  if  not 
an  indispensable  quality.  You  are  ambitious, 
which,  within  reasonable  bounds,  does  good 
rather  than  harm;  but  I  think  during  General 
Burnside's  command  of  the  army  you  have 
taken  counsel  of  your  ambition  and  thwarted 
him  as  much  as  you  could,  in  which  you  did  a 
great  wrong  to  the  country,  and  to  a  most 
meritorious  and  honorable  brother  officer. 

"I  have  heard  in  such  a  way  as  to  believe  it, 
of  you  recently  saying  that  both  the  army  and 
the  government  needed  a  dictator.  Of  course, 
it  was  not  for  this,  but  in  spite  of  it,  that  I  have 

[  40  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

given  you  the  command.  Only  those  generals 
who  gain  successes  can  set  up  dictators.  What 
I  now  ask  of  you  is  military  success,  and  I  will 
risk  the  dictatorship. 

"The  government  wilL support  you  to  the 
utmost  of  its  ability,  which  is  neither  more  or 
less  than  it  has  done  and  will  do  for  all  com- 
manders. I  much  fear  that  the  spirit  that  you 
have  aided  to  infuse  into  the  army  of  criticis- 
ing their  commanders,  and  withholding  the 
facts  from  them,  will  now  turn  upon  you.  I 
shall  assist  you  as  far  as  I  can  to  put  it  down. 
Neither  you  nor  Napoleon,  if  he  were  alive 
again,  could  get  any  good  out  of  an  army  while 
such  a  spirit  prevails  in  it. 

''And  now,  Hooker,  beware  of  rashness! 
Beware  of  rashness!  But  with  energy  and 
sleepless  vigilance,  go  forward  and  give  us 
victories." 

Can  anyone  read  this  letter  without  an  over- 
whelming sense  of  the  greatness  of  this  man, 
Abraham  Lincoln?  Can  anyone  read  this  let- 
ter without  having  a  glimpse  at  least  of  the 
great  love  which  ruled  and  governed  the  life 
of  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  caused  him  to  reach 

[  41  ] 


ABRAHAM    LIiNCOLN 

out  his  strong  hand  to  this  impetuous,  hasty, 
and  wilful,  fighting  Joe  Hooker,  and  say, 
"Hooker,  my  son,  beware  of  the  pitfalls  that 
you  yourself  have  dug,  and  in  God's  name  go 
forward  and  give  us  victories,  depending  all 
the  while  upon  my  faithful  assistance,  even 
though  your  own  folly  may  have  caused  the 
trouble"? 

At  this  distance,  it  is  difficult  for  us  to 
understand  that,  prior  to  Lincoln's  second 
election,  there  were  grave  doubts  expressed 
by  many  of  the  country's  most  prominent  men 
as  to  whether  or  not  Lincoln  could  be  renomi- 
nated and  re-elected.  During  the  great  popu- 
lar depression  which  prevailed  just  before  the 
Democratic  party  made  its  presidential  nomi- 
nation in  1864,  and  when  the  campaign  of  the 
Republicans  lagged  with  indescribable  lan- 
guor, the  military  situation  was  dark  and 
cloudy. 

Lincoln  began  to  share  in  the  prevailing 
impression,  that  he  would  not  be  re-elected. 
Then  his  enemies  circulated  the  absurd  rumor 
that  the  President  and  his  cabinet,  being  sure 
of  defeat  at  the  polls,  would  willingly  help  on 

[  42  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

the  ruin  that  they  were  not  able  to  avert. 

With  these  things  in  view,  Mr.  Lincoln, 
on  the  23  rd  of  August,  wrote  the  following 
memorandum: 

"This  morning,  and  for  some  days  past,  it 
seems  exceedingly  probable  that  this  ad- 
ministration will  not  be  re-elected.  Then  it 
will  be  my  duty  to  so  co-operate  with  the 
President-elect  as  to  save  the  Union  between 
the  election  and  the  inauguration,  as  he  will 
have  to  secure  his  election  on  such  grounds 
that  he  can  not  possibly  save  it  afterwards." 

What  can  the  carping  critic  say  now  of  the 
politician  Lincoln?  Politician  he  truly  was; 
but  the  primary  difference  between  a  politi- 
cian and  a  statesman  is  the  essential  motive 
which  moves  them  to  action,  and  in  the  midst 
of  a  dark  hour,  when  it  seemed  that  his  coun- 
try was  determined  not  to  appreciate  the  effort 
which  he  was  making  to  save  and  preserve  the 
integrity  of  the  Union,  he  puts  aside  his  own 
ambition,  an  ambition  worthy  of  the  best 
American,  and  pledges  to  himself  and  Al- 
mighty God,  that  whatever  he  does  must  be 
done  to  the  end  of  saving  and  preserving  the 

[  43  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Union.    And  during  his  entire  life,  this  spirit 
ruled  and  governed  his  every  action. 

And  even  in  his  triumphs,  this  spirit  never 
for  one  moment  deserted  him.  After  he  had 
been  triumphantly  re-elected  to  the  Presi- 
dency, his  enemies  discomfited  —  the  most 
powerful  man  in  the  United  States — the  whole 
world  ringing  his  praise,  he  is  called  upon  on 
two  occasions  to  answer  a  serenade.  On  one 
occasion  he  says  in  response : 

"I  am  thankful  to  God  for  this  approval  of 
the  people,  but  while  deeply  grateful  for  this 
mark  of  their  confidence  in  me,  if  I  know  my 
own  heart,  my  gratitude  is  free  from  any  taint 
of  personal  triumph.  I  do  not  impugn  the 
motives  of  anyone  opposed  to  me.  It  is  no 
pleasure  to  me  to  triumph  over  anyone,  but  I 
give  thanks  to  the  Almighty  for  this  evidence 
of  the  people's  resolution  to  stand  by  free  gov- 
ernment and  the  rights  of  humanity." 

Again,  some  days  later,  in  answer  to  another 
serenade,  he  said: 

"Alas!  The  rebellion  continues.  And  now 
that  the  election  is  over,  may  not  all  have  a 
common  interest  to  reunite  in  a  common  effort 

[  44  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

to  save  our  common  country?  For  my  own 
part,  I  have  striven,  and  shall  strive  to  avoid 
placing  any  obstacle  in  the  way.  So  long  as 
I  have  been  here,  I  have  not  willingly  planted 
a  thorn  in  any  man's  bosom.  While  I  am  duly 
sensible  to  the  high  compliment  of  a  re-elec- 
tion, and  duly  grateful,  as  I  trust  to  Almighty 
God,  for  having  directed  my  countrymen  to 
a  right  conclusion,  as  I  think,  for  their  good, 
it  adds  nothing  to  my  satisfaction  that  any 
other  man  may  be  disappointed  by  the  result. 

"May  I  ask  those  who  have  not  differed 
with  me,  to  join  me  in  the  same  spirit  toward 
those  who  have ;  and  now  let  me  close  by  ask- 
ing three  hearty  cheers  for  our  brave  soldiers 
and  seamen,  and  for  their  valiant  and  success- 
ful commanders." 

If  ever  there  was  a  time  in  the  history  of  the 
life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  when  he  might  have 
been  expected  to  hold  in  his  magnanimous 
heart  some  resentment  of  feeling,  some  sense 
of  personal  triumph  over  his  enemies,  it  was 
at  this  time;  and  yet,  the  whole  burden  of  his 
speech,  the  whole  burden  of  his  words,  the 
whole  burden  of  his  hopes,  his  aspirations, 

[45  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

was  to  the  end  that  under  God  he  might  be 
the  humble  instrumentality  in  preserving  the 
Union  of  these  states. 

The  world's  history  has  no  parallel — a  vic- 
torious champion  reaching  out  his  hands  to 
the  enemies  who  had  slandered  and  reviled 
him,  and  saying  to  them,  "Let  us  forget  all 
personal  hate  and  rancor,  all  personal  bitter- 
ness and  evil  speaking.  Nay,  let  us  forget  our- 
selves, and  lose  ourselves  in  the  great  endeavor 
to  preserve  our  common  country." 

What  other  President  can  you  name  whose 
magnanimous  spirit  would  have  prompted 
him  to  write  to  his  commanding  general  in 
the  field,  as  Lincoln  wrote  to  Grant: 

"My  Dear  General:  I  do  not  remember 
that  you  and  I  have  met  personally.  I  write 
this  now  as  a  grateful  acknowledgment  of  an 
almost  inestimable  service  you  have  done  the 
country.  I  write  to  say  a  word  further.  When 
you  first  reached  the  vicinity  of  Vicksburg,  I 
thought  you  should  do  what  you  finally  did, 
march  the  troops  across  the  neck,  run  the  bat- 
teries with  the  transports  and  go  below. 
*     *     *     When  you  dropped  below  and  took 

[  46  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Port  Gibson,  Grand  Gulf  and  vicinity,  I 
thought  you  should  go  down  the  river  and 
join  General  Banks,  and  when  you  turned 
northwest,  east  of  the  Big  Black,  I  thought  it 
was  a  mistake.  I  now  wish  to  make  the  per- 
sonal acknowledgment  that  you  were  right, 
and  I  was  wrong.  Yours  very  truly,  A. 
Lincoln." 

I  presume  it  is  a  fair  and  reasonable  state- 
ment, that  the  world's  history  has  no  parallel 
for  simplicity  of  action;  the  commander-in- 
chief  of  an  army,  willingly  writing  to  his 
subordinates  in  the  field,  saying  "This  is  to 
acknowledge  that  you  were  right,  and  I  was 
wrong,"  typifying  again,  as  it  does,  that  the 
ever-favored  object  of  the  heart  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  the  country,  the  nation,  the  union, 
the  preservation  of  these,  placed  before  his 
own  personal  feelings  and  considerations. 

If  I  should  attempt  this  morning  to  quote 
the  almost  innumerable  letters  of  condolence 
and  sympathy  which  this  man  found  time  to 
write  to  the  bereaved  and  stricken  families  of 
the  country,  the  evening  sun  would  set  before 
I  had  been  fairly  started.    But  I  want  you  to 

[  47  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

bear  with  me  in  one  instance  at  least,  in  order 
that  I  may  illustrate  again  this  spirit  of  gentle 
kindliness  which  pervaded  his  every  action  : 

"Mrs.  Bixby,  Boston,  Mass.  Dear  Madam : 
I  have  been  shown  in  the  files  of  the  War  De- 
partment a  statement  of  the  Adjutant  General 
of  Massachusetts,  that  you  are  the  mother  of 
five  sons  who  have  died  gloriously  on  the  field 
of  battle.  I  feel  how  weak  and  fruitless  must 
be  any  words  of  mine  which  should  attempt  to 
beguile  you  from  a  grief  of  a  loss  so  over- 
whelming, but  I  cannot  refrain  from  tender- 
ing to  you  the  consolation  that  may  be  found 
in  the  thanks  of  the  Republic  they  died  to 
save.  I  pray  that  our  Heavenly  Father  may 
assuage  the  anguish  of  your  bereavement,  and 
leave  you  only  the  cherished  memory  of  the 
loved  and  lost,  and  the  solemn  pride  that  must 
be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly  a  sacrifice  upon 
the  altar  of  your  country. 

"Yours  very  sincerely  and  respectfully, 
Abraham  Lincoln." 

Ah,  what  might  have  been  accomplished  by 
the  man  whose  heart  could  dictate  so  match- 
less   a    letter    of    human    sympathy    as    this, 

[  48  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

had    he    been    spared    us    in    the    days    of 
reconstruction! 

Sublime  was  the  personality  of  the  man 
whose  every  action  was  one  of  gentleness,  and 
whose  very  heart  beat  responsive  to  the  sighs 
and  to  the  sorrows  of  all  mankind.  This  spirit 
was  even  comprehended  by  the  great  leaders 
of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  for  it  was  Jef- 
ferson Davis  who  said: 

"Next  to  the  destruction  of  the  Confederacy, 
the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln  was  the  darkest 
day  the  South  has  ever  known,  and  as  I  grow 
older,  I  am  not  sure  but  that  the  death  of 
Lincoln  was  a  greater  calamity  even  than  the 
surrender  of  Lee's  army." 

As  I  said  before,  I  now  repeat — What  might 
have  been  accomplished  had  he  been  spared 
to  us  to  mould  and  fashion  the  sentiment 
which  was  to  rule  and  govern  the  nation  in  the 
reconstruction  period?  The  dark  and  terrible 
days  through  which  this  nation  passed  during 
the  reconstruction  period,  I  believe  would 
have  been  very  different  had  Lincoln  been 
spared  to  us. 

The    great,    magnanimous    heart    of    that 

[  49  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

matchless  leader  of  men  was  big  enough  and 
commanding  enough  in  its  strength  and  power 
to  have  moulded  the  disintegrated  and  scat- 
tered elements  of  the  Southern  Confederacy 
into  a  compact  and  perfect  whole,  and  the 
story  of  the  prodigal  son  might  again  have 
been  repeated,  and  the  father  might  have  cried 
out  to  his  children :  "Come,  you  have  deserted 
my  parental  roof;  you  have  rebelled  against 
my  paternal  authority;  you  have  risen  up  in 
insurrection  and  rebellion;  you  have  spent 
your  substance  in  riotous  living;  you  have 
caused  the  blood  of  your  brothers,  my  chil- 
dren, to  flow  like  water;  you  have  cost  us  bil- 
lions of  treasure  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
precious  lives;  but  with  it  all,  I  cannot  forget 
that  you  are  my  children ;  and  while  you  are 
even  yet  a  great  way  off  from  the  spirit  of  sub- 
missive obedience,  nevertheless  I  will  gather 
up  my  remaining  strength  and  I  will  go  out 
in  the  highways  and  meet  you,  and  say,  'Come 
again  unto  your  father's  house,  to  a  table  that 
is  spread  for  you,  and  there  shall  be  great  re- 
joicing, not  because  of  the  triumph  of  our 
arms,  not  because  we  have  succeeded  by  force 

[  50] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

and  power  in  crushing  out  this  rebellion,  but 
because  I  recognize  in  you  my  offspring  and 
my  child;  " 

I  cannot  better  express  myself  than  in  the 
immortal  words  of  Dr.  Storrs,  when  he  says: 

"When  he  took  the  reins  of  Government, 
the  finances  of  the  country  seemed  hopelessly 
deranged,  and  after  many  years  of  peace,  it 
was  difficult  to  raise  money  at  unprecedented 
interest,  for  its  daily  use;  and  when  he  died, 
after  such  expenditures  as  no  man  dreamed 
of,  through  four  long  years  of  devastating 
war,  the  credit  of  the  Republic  was  so  firmly 
established  that  foreign  markets  were  clamor- 
ous for  its  bonds. 

"When  he  came  to  Washington,  the  Navy, 
at  the  command  of  the  Government,  was  scat- 
tered almost  beyond  recall,  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  and  was  even  ludricrously  insufficient 
for  instant  needs.  He  left  it  framed  in  iron, 
instead  of  oak,  with  wholly  new  principles 
expressed  in  its  structures,  and  large  enough 
to  bind  the  continent  in  blockade;  while  it 
made  the  national  flag  familiar  on  every  sea 
with  commerce  courses. 

[  51  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"He  found  an  army  remotely  dispersed, 
almost  hopelessly  disorganized  by  the  treach- 
ery of  its  officers,  with  hardly  enough  of  it  left 
to  furnish  a  bodyguard  for  his  march  to  the 
national  capitol.  He  left  half  a  million  men 
in  arms,  after  the  losses  of  fifty  campaigns, 
with  valor,  discipline,  arms  and  generalship 
unsurpassed  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

"He  found  our  diplomacy  a  byword  and  a 
hissing  in  most  of  the  foreign  courts.  He 
made  it  intelligent,  influential,  respected, 
wherever  a  civilized  language  is  spoken. 

"In  his  moral  and  political  achievements  at 
home  he  was  still  more  successful.  He  found 
the  arts  of  industry  prostrated,  nay,  almost 
paralyzed,  by  the  arrest  of  commerce,  the 
repudiation  of  debts,  the  universal  distrust. 
He  left  them  so  trained,  quickened  and  devel- 
oped, that  henceforth  they  are  secure  amid  the 
world's  competition. 

"He  came  to  Washington  through  a  people, 
morally  rent  and  disorganized,  of  whom  it  was 
known  that  a  part  at  least  were  in  full  accord 
with  disloyal  plans.  He  laid  heavy  taxes;  he 
drafted  them  into  armies;  he  made  no  effort 

[  52  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

to  excite  their  admiration;  he  seemed  to  throw 
down  even  the  ancient  monument  of  their 
personal  liberty. 

"He  went  back  to  his  grave  through  the 
very  same  people,  so  knit  into  one,  by  their 
love  for  each  other,  and  their  reverence  for 
him,  that  the  cracking  of  the  continent  could 
hardly  part  them. 

"At  his  entrance  on  his  office,  he  found  the 
leaders  of  the  largest,  fiercest  and  most  con- 
fident rebellion  known  in  history,  apparently 
in  all  things  superior  to  himself  in  capacity, 
in  culture,  in  political  experience,  in  control 
over  men,  in  general  weight  with  the  country 
itself. 

"And,  when  he  was  assassinated,  he  left 
them  so  utterly  overthrown  and  discomfited 
that  they  fled  over  sea;  a  power  it  had  taken 
thirty  years  to  mature — a  power  that  put 
everything  in  the  contest,  money,  men,  har- 
bors, homes,  churches,  cities,  states  them- 
selves, and  that  fought  with  a  fury  never  sur- 
passed in  the  world's  history,  he  not  only 
crushed  but  extinguished  in  four  years. 

"He  found   a  race  immeshed  in  bondage 

[  53  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

which  had  lasted  already  two  hundred  years, 
and  had  been  compacted  and  confirmed  by 
invention  and  commerce,  by  arts,  legislation, 
by  social  usage,  and  even  by  religion;  he  pre- 
tended no  special  fondness  for  the  race;  he 
refused  to  make  war  on  its  behalf;  but  he  took 
it  up  cheerfully  in  the  sweep  of  his  plans,  and 
left  it  a  race  of  free  workers  and  soldiers. 

"He  came  to  the  capitol  of  an  empire, 
severed  by  what  seemed  to  the  world,  eternal 
lines,  with  sectional  interest  and  irremovable 
hatreds,  forbidding  reconstruction;  he  left  it 
the  capitol  of  an  empire,  so  restored  that  the 
thought  of  its  division  was  henceforth  an  ab- 
surdity; with  its  untiy  more  complete  than 
that  of  Great  Britain;  with  its  ancient  flag 
and  unchanging  rule  supreme  again  from  sea 
to  sea,  and  from  Gulf  to  Great  Lakes. 

"Nay,  he  found  a  nation  who  had  lost  in  a 
measure  its  primitive  faith  in  the  grand  ideas 
of  its  own  constitution;  and  he  left  that  nation 
so  instructed  and  renewed,  so  aware  of  its 
supremacy  of  principles  over  force,  so  con- 
nected to  the  justice  and  the  liberty  which  its 
founders  had  valued,  that  the  era  of  his  power 

[  54  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

was  the  era  of  its  new  birth;  that  our  history 
will  be  nobler  and  more  luminous  forever  for 
his  inspiration. 

"Public  achievement  is  not  his  only  memor- 
ial. His  influence  has  come  4ike  the  clear 
shining  after  rain,'  on  the  personal  character 
of  the  people  he  ruled.  He  educated  a  nation 
into  a  gentleness  more  strange  than  its  skill, 
and  more  glorious  than  its  valor. 

''Through  his  personal  spirit  he  restrained 
and  exalted  the  temper  of  a  continent — and 
our  letters  are  nobler,  our  art  more  spiritual, 
our  philanthropy  more  generous,  our  very 
churches  more  honest  and  free,  because  of 
what  we  learned  of  him.  The  public  estimate 
of  honesty  is  higher,  the  sense  of  the  power 
and  grandeur  of  character  is  more  intimate  in 
men's  minds, — we  know  what  style  of  man- 
hood America  needs,  and  in  her  progress,  tends 
to  produce.  He  has  given  us  a  fresh  and 
deeper  sense  of  that  eternal  Providence,  which 
was  his  daily  bulwark. 

"Not  to  our  country  alone  has  his  work 
been  confined — across  the  sea  extends  his 
mighty    influence.      It   verberates    this    hour 

[  55  ] 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

around  the  great  world,  and  despotic  institu- 
tions are  less  secure  and  absolute;  the  progress 
of  liberty  throughout  the  great  world  is  more 
rapid  and  sure  by  reason  of  what  he  wrought. 
The  nations  of  the  world  are  nearer  unto  God 
because  he  lived;  the  human  race  itself  has 
been  lifted  heavenward  toward  the  gates  of 
mingled  gold  and  pearl  that  wait  to  swing  on 
silent  hinges  into  the  age  of  freedom  and  uni- 
versal peace." 

"I  praise  him  not;  it  were  too  late; 

And  some  innative  weakness  there  must  be 

In  him  who  condescends  to  victory 
Such  as  the  Present  gives,  and  cannot  wait, 
Safe  in  himself  as  in  a  fate. 

So  always  firmly  he : 
He  knew  to  bide  his  time, 

And  can  his  fame  abide, 
Still  patient  in  his  simple  faith  sublime, 

Till  the  wise  years  decide. 
Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and  drums, 

Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour, 
But  at  last  silence  comes ; 

These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower, 
Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame. 

The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  farseeing  man. 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 

New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American." 

[  56  ] 


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